Human beings are of course unique. They have, perched between their ears, the most complicated biological machine on the planet. But complexity is no… - Matt Ridley

Just as we underestimate the degree to which human brains rely upon instincts, so we have generally underestimated the degree to which other animals are capable of learning.

There are genes that have not changed much since the very first single-celled creatures populated the primeval ooze. There are genes that were developed when our ancestors were worm-like. There are genes that must have first appeared when our ancestors were fish. There are genes that exist in their present form only because of recent epidemics of disease. And there are genes that can be used to write the history of human migrations in the last few thousand years. From four billion years ago to just a few hundred years ago, the genome has been a sort of autobiography for our species, recording the important events as they occurred.

These two processes—linguistic philology and genetic phylogeny—are converging upon a common theme: the history of human migrations.